Jimmy Fidler
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
columnist, journalist and radio and television personality. He wrote a Hollywood gossip column and was sometimes billed as Jimmy Fidler.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, Fidler was a former Hollywood publicist who became a syndicated columnist with his "Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood" column in 187 outlets, including the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
and the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
. In 1933-34 his 15-minute NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
show, Hollywood on the Air, sponsored by Tangee lipstick, was broadcast from the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel is a historic Spanish-style hotel located at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Named after Theodore Roosevelt and financed by a group including Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Louis B. Mayer, it first opened its doors on May 15, 1927...
. He was regarded in Hollywood as a genuine threat to gossip queen Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons was the first American news-writer movie columnist in the United States. She was a gossip columnist who, for many years, was an influential arbiter of Hollywood mores, often feared and hated by the individuals, mostly actors, whose careers she could negatively impact via her...
, especially after he scooped her in November 1935 on a major story about Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
, an incident so embarrassing to Parsons that she lied about it in her autobiography.
Films
Fidler interviewed film personalities for the Hollywood segments of Fox Movietone News. Such was Fidler's influence that a negative comment by him could affect the box officeBox office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
drawing power of a star. According to Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, in January 1938 he was sued for libel by Constance Bennett
Constance Bennett
-Early life:She was born in New York City, the daughter of actor Richard Bennett and actress Adrienne Morrison, whose father was the stage actor Lewis Morrison , a wealthy performer of English and Spanish ancestry...
for $250,000 after he reported she snubbed Patsy Kelly
Patsy Kelly
Patsy Kelly was an American stage and film comedic actress.-Early life and career:Kelly was born Sarah Veronica Rose Kelly in Brooklyn, New York to Irish immigrants, John and Delia Kelly, and made her Broadway debut in 1928...
on a Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...
movie set and that studio workmen bought flowers for Kelly but none for Bennett.
In 1938 Fidler made a short MGM documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, Personality Parade, about actors making the change from silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
s to talkies. It featured clips of more than 60 performers whose careers began in silent films.
Television
By 1950, Fidler was earning more than $250,000 a year and was heard by 40 million listeners over 486 radio stations. During 1952-53, he hosted the live television drama series, Hollywood Opening Night on NBC.For his contribution to the radio industry, Fidler has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 6128 Hollywood Blvd.